Census 2000

California is a land of economic extremes, with more than its share of big earners and poor people. But, according to Census Bureau figures being released today, it's also short of something: middle-class families. The latest figures portray California as among the nation's leaders in families earning more than $200,000 a year and, at the same time, a place with above-average percentages of impoverished children. That left the state with a pinched middle class at the end of the decade.

From the moment segregation in America had a name, it has referred to the separateness of blacks and whites. But during the last decade, while blacks were making some progress in residential integration, Latinos and Asians became more isolated from other racial groups in the vast majority of the nation's large metropolitan areas, from Chicago's red-bricked grid to Phoenix's beige sprawl, a Times analysis of 2000 census data shows.

After 10 years of waiting for new census data and three months of analyzing it, the nation's demographics experts are sharply divided on whether segregation of blacks eased in the 1990s. Three main factions have emerged, offering up the same numbers as proof that (1) integration reached historic levels, (2) integration stalled or (3) what looks like new integration is a temporary mirage. On their debate turns a fundamental notion of American progress.

They come for the contagious gospel choir, the rollicking sermons and preacher's booming voice, rippling over the pews. At Santa Ana's Second Baptist Church, parishioners also come for the comfortable haven created by the faces that surround them--African American faces. "There is something uniquely special," said the Rev. John McReynolds, "about being with my people on a Sunday in worship."

California cities are among the most crowded in the nation, as high housing prices and a chronic apartment shortage have forced families to double up and homeowners to rent bedrooms and garages. Crowding detailed in the latest U.S. census can be seen especially in largely Latino cities that have become major ports of entry for poor immigrants seeking a better life.

The first Gold Rush to shape this region of rolling hills and sparkling water was peopled by a rugged breed of fortune hunters--mostly young, mostly single, mostly male. San Francisco in 1849 was a playground for the hale and hearty, no place for families. The second Gold Rush--150 years later and fueled by technology--has also had a profound impact.

Orange County residents are more likely today than 10 years ago to shop, bank or go to movie theaters alongside a person of a different race or ethnic background, an analysis of the 2000 census data shows. In every encounter, those odds are now better than 50% in 16 Orange County cities, up from 11 cities a decade ago.

Southern California's Vietnamese population grew sharply in the 1990s despite ebbing immigration, drawing newcomers from elsewhere in the state and nation into a powerful cluster that now exceeds 230,000, census information released today shows. That includes 135,548 in Orange County alone, where the Vietnamese American community surged almost 89% and won demographic bragging rights over rival centers in the San Jose area and Texas.

Almost two dozen stable, ethnically balanced cities emerged in Southern California over the last decade, upending the notion that swift racial turnover inevitably follows when whites start to leave a region. The proportion of Southland cities where two or more ethnic or racial groups live in substantial numbers almost doubled between 1980 and 2000. In 1980 about a fifth of Southland cities (33 of 149) fit in that category.

When Hyundai Motor America learned that its Elantra and Accent models were striking a chord with nurses, the car company turned to Census Bureau data to shape advertising that would reach the largely female profession. Hyundai now is anxiously awaiting the release of detailed income, education and occupation data from the 2000 census, with an eye toward honing that specialized pitch.